DOCUMENT RESUME ED 380 341 SO 024 223 AUTHOR Gordon, Edwin E. TITLE Audiation, Music Learning Theory, Music Aptitude, and Creativity. PUB DATE 89 NOTE 32p.; For related documents, see ED 378 091, and SO 024 225. PUB TYPE Reports Research/Technical (143) Journal Articles (080) JOURNAL CIT Suncoast Music Education Forum on Creativity; p75-81 1989 EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Aptitude; Auditory Discrimination; *Creativity; Educational Research; Higher Education; *Music; *Music Education; Music Techniques; Performance; Teaching Methods IDENTIFIERS *Audiation; *Music Ability ABSTRACT This paper discusses music creativity. Offering no simple definition of music creativity, it suggests that music creativity cannot be taught. What can be taught are the readinesses for one to fulfill potential for music creativity. The quality and extent of one's early musical environment, that will affect one's overall music aptitude, are perhaps the most powerful factors in determining the extent to which one can become musically creative. For students to learn to be as musically creative as their potential will allow, a teacher must know whether the student's aptitudes in tonal creativity are higher or lower than their aptitude in rhythm creativity, so that in instruction, the separate aptitudes may be compensated for and enhanced. Without ar,quiring an audiation vocabulary that includes a large number of tonal patterns and a large number of rhythm patterns in as many tonalities and meters as possible, levels of music aptitude notwithstanding, students will not have the necessary readinesses to become musically creative. Therefore, teachers must concentrate on teaching readiness for music creativity, not music creativity itself. It is the indirect, not the direct approach that will make the difference. Music aptitude is different from music achievement. Music aptitude represents one's potential to learn to audiate, whereas music achievement represents, among other things, what one has learned to audiate. There are two types of music aptitude:(1) developmental and (2) stabilized. Music aptitude is multidimensional. Addendums included in the document are: (1) types and stages of audiation;(2) music learning theory;(3) "Improvisation: Spontaneous Composition" (Billy Taylor); and (4) "Orientation and Intentionality as Components of Creative Musical Activity" (John Kratus). Lontains 23 references in all. (DK) *****, J*********************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** 0 Audiation, Music LearningTheory, 00 en Music Aptitude, andCreativity Edwin E. Gordon U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 0,ce of Educsbonai RsolarChand Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 11Tts document has been reproducedea reserved Irom the c.erson of orgentzation ongmahng4 O MrhOr Changes have Peen madeto Improve reproduction quality Polls 01 view or oCxn.Oal stId.n ment do not necessarily ,OP,03001th.SCIOC. ethclal OERI position or policy 'PERMISSION TO REPRODUCETHIS MATERIAL. HAS BEENGRANTED BY e-Icirbei-LEA'a, TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) BEST COPY P6ALABLE 2 Audiation, Music Learning Theory, Music Aptitude, and Creativity Edwin E. Gordon It seems natural thatwhen one thinks of thearts, he thinks of creativity, and when thinks of creativity, he one thinks of the arts. Thus it isnot surprising that when one thinks ofmusic, which is one of thearts, he thinks of creativity. That has advantages anddisadvantages. One of the advantages isthat music is immediately treated with awe in the minds ofmany sensitive, thoughtful, and influentialpersons. One of the disadvantages is expected by those that music teachers are persons to know how to teach theirstudents to be musically creative. To teach a student to bemusically creative isa complex, if not an impossible, undertaking. reasons are varied. Those The reasons are best understood by exploringthe nature of audiation, music learning theory, andmusic aptitude. My reasons for believing that music creativitycannot be taught should become increasingly clear as I explain the nature of audiation,music learning theory, and music aptitude.I will expound my belief that a studentcan be taught only to acquire the information that will enable necessary him to become musicallycreative to the extent that his potential allow. I shall begin with will audiation, move to music learningtheory, describe music aptitude, and then conclude by explaining how all of them mustserve as readinesses for music creativity, and how they collectivelygive rise to music creativity. Audiation A person audiates when he can hear andcomprehend music for which the sound physically present. is not Audiation is not imitation.For example, I shall singa short song without words, and then I would like you to sing it backto me. It is apparent that song, but I am not sure that you imitated the you audiated it. Did you know that thesong is in lydian tonality and that the meter of the song changed back and forthbetween triple meter and duplemeter? If you did not, you were imitatingbut not audiating the what you were hearing. song, because you did not comprehend You simply learned thesong by rote. Take another example. All you, of course, can audiate of Happy Birthdayas being in major tonality and in triple you able to audiate Happy meter. Are Birthday, however, inharmonic minor tonality andduple meter? If not, your ability toaudiate is limited. Neither is audiationrecognition. For example, most, if not all, of you wouldrecognize the Mozart Symphonyin 0 Minor upon hearing it, but would you be ableto audiate all of the major themes of thesymphony before,or even after, you heard the work? capable of recognizing If not, you are the symphony butnot of audiating it.If which you cannot I am asking you to dothings do, do not be too criticalof yourselves. Remember, instruction you received most of the music in elementary school, inhigh school, and at the levels emphasized college and university imitation and recognitionat the expense of audiation. audiation taught Rarely, if ever, was as a natural follow-up toimitation. At this point in the you to give some preliminary discussion I might ask thought to the question:Is it possible forone to become musically Suncoast Music EducationForum Page 75 creative if he cannot audiate, even though he may be able to imitate andrecognize music? Although imitation is the necessary readiness for learning how to audiate, audiationis significantly different from imitation as well as from recognition. Moreover, audiation isnot the same as memorization. That an instrumentalist or a vocalistmay perform in concert does not mean that either is necessarily audiating what he is performing. Manyyoung, and some more mature, musicians simply have memorized what they perform withoutaudiating what they perform. They have memorized the order and sequence of themusic that they have learned by rote without comprehending it. Of course one can learnto memorize by reading notation as well as by listening tosomeone else perform. As a result of the foregoing distinctions made among audiation,imitation, recognition, and memorization, perhaps many of you may be beginning to makea comparison between the roles of audiation and notation in music education. Unlessone can audiate what is seen in notation before he produces sound on an instrumentas dictated by the notation, what he is reading will have only theoretical meaning for him. Unfortunately he willbe engaging in the act of attempting to take theoretical meaning from thenotation ratherthan to give musical meaning to the notation. Without an idea of what the music shouldsound like before he reads it in notation, he cannot learn much about the music itself from thenotation. Notation can only help one recall what he can already audiate. Moreover,one cannot learn to audiate notationally unless he has first learned to audiate. To attempt to teachmusical creativity by using notation to one who cannot notationally audiate, or even audiate, is thehandmaiden of folly. Before leaving the topic of audiation, I should mention, althoughit is probably obvious, that there are various types and stages of audiation.Types of audiation include listening to music, reading music, writing music, performingmusic from recall, and improvising and performing music creatively. The stages of audiationare not so clear cut. Though the stages are hierarchical, two or more of the stages usually are concurrent.Consider, as an example, the stages of audiation that one ideallypasses through when he listens to music. First, is audiated. Second, sound the sounds are grouped inaudiation into tonal patterns and into rhythm patterns. Third, the tonality andthe meter of the tonalpatterns and rhythm patterns are audiated. Fourth, at thesame time that the tonal patterns, rhythm of the music heard just patterns, tonality, and meter seconds earlier are beingsustained in audiation, the forthcoming sounds of the music are being audiated.Fifth, tonal patterns, rhythmpatterns, tonalities, meters, modulations, style,and form, to name onlya few of the dimensions of music, recalled from music that are was heard days, weeks, months,or even years ago to help interpret the music which is currently being heard. Sixth, what willbe heard next in the music is being predicted in audiation at the same time as whathas been heard in the music is being in audiation.